Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

f (SAT* fig m ■?? / - " •YNOPSI 8 , Senator John Calhoun Is Invited to be¬ come secretary of state in Tyler's cab- met. He declares that if he accepts Texas and Oregon must be added to tne Union. He sends his secretary. Nicholas Trist, to ask the Baroness von Rltz, spy of the British ambassador. Pakenharn. to call at his apartments. While searching for th» baroness' home, a carriage drives up and Nicholas Is Invited to enter. The occupant Is the baroness, and she asks Nicholas to •aslst In evading pursuers Nicholas notes that the baroness lias lost a slipper. She give# Sledge him the remaining slipper as a that she will tell Calhoun what he wants to know regarding England's As !n- tentlons 1 toward Mexico. security Nicholas gives her a trinket he Intended for his sweetheart, Elisabeth Churchill. Tyler tells Pakenharn that Joint occupa¬ tion of Oregon with England, must cease, that the west hus raised the cry of "Flf- ty-four Forty, or Flght.” Calh oun be- comes secretary of state. H« orders Nicholes to Montreal on state business, and I he latier plans to be married that night. The baroness says she will try to prevent the marriage. A drunken con¬ gressman in whom Nicholas asks to assist the wedding arrangements, sends the baroness’ Bllpper to Elizabeth, by mis¬ take, and the wedding Is declared off. Nicholas find* the baroness In Montreal, •he having succeeded, where he failed. In discovering England's Intentions regard¬ ing Oregon. She tells him that the slip¬ per lie had In his possession contained a note from the attache of Texas to the British ambassador, saying that If the United States did not annox Texas wltli- In 90 days, Nicholas she would lose both Texas and Oregon. Ttlttenhofen, meets a naturalist. Von about Oregon. who gives him Information The baroness and a British warship disappear from Montreal Von simul¬ taneously. hofen Calhoun engages Ritten- to make maps of the western coun¬ try. Calhoun orders Nicholas to head a party of settlers bound for Oregon. Nicholas ElIzabeth.^HHHiii^H^^H has an unsatisfactory Interview with Calhoun excites the Jealousy the of Henora Yturrlo the and thereby •ecures signature of Texas at¬ tache to a treaty of annexation. Nicholas start# for Oregon. CHAPTER XXV. n . Oregon. The spell and the light of each path we pursue— If W'oman be there, there Is happiness too. —Moore. Twenty miles a day, week in and Week out, we edged westward up the Platte, In heat p.nd dust part of the time, often plagued at night by clouds of mosquitoes. Our men endured the penalties oi the Journey without com¬ ment. I do not recall that I ever heard e/ven the weakest woman com¬ plain. Thus at last we reached the South pass of the Rockies, not yet hq-lf done our Journey, and entered xipon that portion of the trail west of the Rockies, which had still two moun¬ tain ranges to cross, and which was even more apt to be Infested by the hostile Indians. Even when we reached the ragged trading post. Fort Hall, we had still more than GOO miles to go. Ily this time our forces had wasted as though under assault of arms. Far back on the trail, many had been forced to leave prized belongings, rel¬ ics, belrloomB, Implements, machinery, all conveniences. The finest of ma¬ hogany blistered In the sun, aban- i oned and unheeded. Our trail might ave been followed by discarded Im¬ plements of agriculture, and by jwhlteDed bones as well. Our footsore teams, gaunt and weakened, began to Jfalnt and fall. Horses and oxen died In the harness or under the yoke, and were perforce abandoned where they fell. Each pound of superfluous weight was cast away as our motive power thus lessened. Wagons were aban¬ doned, goods were packed on horses, oxen and cows. 1 We put cows into the yoke now. and used women Instead of men on the drivers’ seats, and boys who started riding finished afoot. Gaunt and brown and savage, hun¬ gry and grim, ragged, hatless. shoe¬ less, our cavalcade closed up and came on. and so at last came through. Ere autumn had yellowed all the foliage back east in gentler climes, we crossed the shoulders of the Blue mountains and came Into the valley of the Walla Walla; and so passed thence down the Columbia to the valley of the Wil¬ lamette. $00 miles yet farther, where there were then some slight centers of our civilization which had gone for- ward the year before. Here were some few Americans. At Champoeg, at the little American mis¬ sions. at Oregon City, and other scat¬ tered points, we met them, we hailed and were hailed by them. Measengers spread abroad the news of the arrival of our wagon train, Messengers, too, came down from the Hudson bay posts to scan our equip- meat and estimate our numbers. There was no word obtainable from these of any Canadian column of occupation to the northward which had crossed at the head of the Peace river or the (Saskatchewan, or which lay ready at the head waters of the Fraser or the Columbia to come down to the lower settlements for the purpose of bring- Ing to an Issue, or making more dlffl- cult, this question of the joint occu- patty of Oregon. A» a matter of fact, ultimately we won that tranacon- tiaental race so decidedly that there never was admitted to have been a second. So we took Oregon by the only law of right. Our broken and weakened cavalcade asked renewal from the soil Itself. We ruffled no drum, fluttered no flag, to take possession of the land. Hu! the canvas covers of our gave way 10 permanent roofa. »« vad knewu a hundred 54 i* * FIIGHT BY EMERSON HOUGH AUTHOR or THE MlfflfflPPI’BPBBW ILIUJTRAnONy COPYRIOMT ly MAGNUT C.KJETTNER. 1909 HOBBS' - MBRRILt. COMWlW now we lighted the fires of many hun¬ dred homes. CHAPTER XXVI. The Debated Country. The world was sad, the garden was a wild! The man, the hermit, sighed—till woman smiled! —Campbell. Our army of peaceful occupation scattered along the more fertile parts of the land, principally among the valleys., Of course, it should not be forgotten that what was then called Oregon meant all of what now la em¬ braced In Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with part of Wyoming as well. It extended south to the Mexican pos¬ sessions of California. How far north It was to run. It wag my errand here to learn. I settled near the mouth of the Wil¬ lamette river, near Oregon City, and not far from where the city of Port¬ land later was begun; and builded for myself a little cabin of two rooms, with a connecting roof. This I fur¬ nished, as did my neighbors their similar abode, with a table made of hewed puncheons, chairs sawed from blocks, a bed framed from poles, on which lay a rude mattress of husks and straw. From the eastern states I scarcely could now hear In less than a year, for another wagon train could not T.+ m W&i V J i ft H i ' M Ql I 1 t Si t.. N b i Our Men Endured the Penalties of the Journey Without Comment. start west from the Missouri until the following spring. We could only guess how events were going forward In our diplomacy. The mild winter wore away, aud I learned little. Spring came, and still no word of any land expedition out of Canada. We and the Hudson bay folk still dwelt in peace. The flowers began to bloom In the wild meads, and the horses fattened on their na- tive pastures. Summer came on. The fields began to whiten with the ripening grain. 1 grew uneasy, feeling myself only an idler in a land so able to fend for itself. I now was much disposed to discuss means of getting back over the long trail to the eastward, to carry the news that Oregon was ours, it was at this time that there occurred a startling and decisive event, I was on my way on a canoe voy- ^, e up the wide Columbia, not far the point where It receives its greatest lower tributary, the WU- lamette, when all at once 1 heard the g 0 und of a cannon shot. J. turned to Bee the c l ou d of blue smoke still hang j n g over the surface of the water, Slowly there swung into view an ocean going vessel under iteam and auxiliary canvas. She made a gal- lant spectacle. But whose ship was she? I examined her colors anxiously enough. I caught the import of her ensign. She flew the British Union Jack! England had won the race by sea! Something of the ship's outline seemed to me familiar. I knew the set of her short masts, the pitch of her smoke-stacks, the number of hor guns. Yes. she was the Modeste of the English navy—the same ship which more than a year before I had seen at anchor off Montreal! News travels fast in wild countries, and it took us little time to learn the destination of the Mode&te. She came to anchor above Oregon City, and well below Fort Vancouver. At once, of course, her officers made formal calls upon Or. McLaughlin, the factor at Fort Vancouver, and accepted head of the British elements thereabouts. Two weeks passed in rumors and counter rumors, and a vastly dangerous ten¬ sion existed in all the American set¬ tlements, because word was spread that England had sent a ship to oust us. Then came to myself and certain others at Oregon City messengers from peace-loving Or. McLaughlin, asking us to join him In a little cele¬ bration In honor of the arrival of her 1 majesty’s vessel. Here at last was news; but It was news not wholly to my liking which I soon unearthed. The Modeste was but one ship of 15! A fleet of 15 ves¬ sels, 400 guns, then lay in Puget sound. The watch-dogs of Great Britain were at our doors. This question of mon- arcby and the republic was not yet nettled after all' I pass the story of the banquet at Fort _ . Vancouver, „ . because it .. is . im- „ pleasant . . to . recite .. the difficulties , tl of . „ a kindly host who finds himself with jarring elements at his board. Pre- cisely this was the situation of white- haired Dr. McLaughlin of Fort Van- couver. It was an Incongruous as- sembly In the first place. The officers of the British navy attended in the splendor of their uniforms, glittering in braid and gold. Even Dr. McLaugh- lin made brave display, as was bis wont, In his regalia of dark blue cloth an<^ shining buttons—his noble lea- tures and long, snow-white hair m» king him the most lordly figure of them all. As for us Americans, lean and brown, with hands hardened by toil, our wardrobes scattered over ft thousand miles of trail, buckskin tunics made our coats, and moccasins our hoots I have seen some noble gentlemen so clad in my day. It was, as may be supposed, late In the night when our somewhat discord- ant banqueting party broke up. We were all housed, as was the hospitable fashion of the country, 1n the scattered log buildings which nearly always hedge in a western fur-trading post. The quarters assigned me lay across ! open space, or what might be j ! couver, <' alled the flanked Parade by ground Dr. McLaughlin's of Fort Van ! little cannon. As I made my way home, stumbling among the stumps In the dark, I passed { many semi-drunken Indians and voy- ageurs, to whom special liberty had been accorded in view of the occasion. all of them now engaged in singing the praises of the "King George" men as against the "Bostons." I was almost at my cabin door at the edge of the forest frontage at the rear of the old post, when l caught zlimoie. in the dim light, of a hurry- w i r . * if t»« fng figure, which in some w»y seemed to be different from the blanket-cov- j ered squaw 3 who stalked here and : there about the post grounds, She passed steadily on toward a long and low log cabin, located a short dis- tance beyond the quarters which had : been to assigned the to me. I saw her step j up door and heard her knock; 1 then there came a flood of light—more light than was usual in the opening door of a frontier cabin. This dis- played the figure of the night walker, showing her tall and gaunt and a little stooped; so that, after all, I took her to he only one of our American fron¬ tier women, being quite sure that she was not Indian or half-breed. This emboldened me, on a mere chance—an act whose mental origin 1 could not have traced—to step up to the door after it had been closed, and myself to knock thereat. l heard women's voices within, and as T knocked the door opened Just a trifle on its chain. I saw appear at the crack ;he face of the woman whom I had followed. She was, as I had believed, old and wrinkled, and her face now, seen plo « e - was as mysterious, dark arid in- scrutable as that of any Indian 3quaw ’ ^ er hair {eU heav >’ and SW across her forehead, and her eyes were small and dark as those .. of a nat re woman. Yet, as she stood there with the light streaming upon her, I saw something in her face which made me puzzle, ponder and start—and put my foot within the crack of the door. "Threlka,” I said quietly, "tell madam the baroness it is I, Mons, Trist of Washington.” CHAPTER XXVII. In the Cabin of Madam. Woman must not belong to herself; she Is bound to alien destinies.—Friedrich von Schiller. With an exclamation of surprise the old woman departed from the door. I heard the rustle of a footfall. 1 could have told in advance what face would now appear outlined In the candlo glow—with eyes wide and startled, with Ups half parted In query. It was the face of Helena, Raroness voa Rltz! "Eh bien! madam, why do you bar me out?" I said, ns though we had parted but yesterday. In her sheer astonishment, I pro- surae, she let down the fastening chain, and without her invitation l stepped within. I heard her startled “Mon Dieu!” then her more deliberate exclamation of emotion. “My God!" she said. She stood, with her hand 3 caught at her throat, staring at me. I laughed and held out a hand "Madam baroness,” I said, "how glad I am! Come, has not fate beeu kind to us again?" 1 pushed shut the door behind me. Still without a word, she stepped deeper into th^ room and stood look- ing at me, her hands clasped now loosely and awkwardly, as though sha were a country girl surprised, and aot the Baroness Helena von Rltz, toist or talk of more than one < pita) of the world. (TO BE CONTINUED.) WHERE MAN IS NOT MASTEil Unable to Discover Secret of Avoiding That Troublesome Cold in the Head. Man, says Perslus, Is a very nobis piece of work, and is Indeed king of kings except at those times when ha is troubled with a cold In his head. If it be not Perslus. it was Horace or Juvenal. It is a fact of great Interest that they are so common. Other epIdemU diseases—measles, typhoid, scarlet fe- ver. diphtheria— may get bold on us once and there is an end; it Is not usual to have any of them twice. lVs brew In our blood immunity. The pol- son of the disease evokes in us Its proper antidote; our blood cells make a sort of natural ; antitoxin and keep it in stock. so that we are henceforth protected against the disease. A well-vaccinated i nurse, for instance, works with saTety in <t smallpox hospital, where the vety . air is infective: but her blood was so changed by vaccination that the small- pox cannot affect her. By scarlet le¬ ' ver. again we are. as it were, varcl- nated against scarlet ferer—the reac- "on of our blood against the disease immunizes us. No such result follows ; influenza or a common cold; we brew nothing that is permanent; we are Just as susceptible to a later Invasion as we were to the invasion that la just over, . The Mean Thing, The Suffragette (smilingly) —Won't you ,j 0 something to help our good j cause along. Mr Goodcraft? ; jj r Goodcraft—I'd like very much , 0 do one thing for ycu. but 1 fear |t'g impossible. The Suffragette—T—ut! tut! Noth- Ing's impossible—what would you like to do for us? Mr. Goodgraft—Endow a fww cell* in your favorite prisonal 0 >s^©©©'*^©©©©©® 5 —GO TO- O 0 FLORIDA AND CUB o s 3*0 o o 0 Atioiitic Coast Line ©©© J Offers Magnificent Train Service J ©©© and Convenient Schedules ©©© TO ALL POINTS I 0 Q ra For Schedule, Information or Literature 4 QQ© i see W. J, your CRAIG, agent Passenger or write Traffic to Mgr., Wilmington, N. C. o •j ^flJTE GCHSTUl PiSS’l Ageilt, WlUBiBglOIl, . M W. r v. {4 ’ SaVaWliUl, _ . p iyj VhDTn Asst. G&l. PclSS’l Ageilt, G3. ■ * V m a ©©© Q&SSC3 0 T © ©© ©©© © ©©©©©©©©© © 0 0 0 O A Phone In 0 0 0 0 o 0 Your Residence 0 o 0 Is insurance against forgetting. 0 Will save you many a step. 0 Is comfort for the family. 0 || Is protection in your absence. ^ jy 0 0 %y DAY SERVICE 0 /A ALL 0 You can get Central any time from 6 0 (9 o’clock in the morning to 10 o’clock 0 l| at night. II 0 mw 55 § & Rates $1.50 Per Month O 0 0 0 Q 0 0 0 Homerville Telephone Co. § 0 £ % H. J. DAIVIE, Manager 0 O 0 0 ©©®©®©$©©©®ss®ss I H. J. PEAGLER, President J. F. HUGHES, Cashier W. T. DICKERSON, Vice President Bank of Homerville HOMERVILLE, GEORGIA Capital and Surplus $30,000 i DIRECTORS H. J. Peagier, W. T. Dickerson, R. G. Dickerson, H. J. Dame, Geo. M. Dame, D. E. Kirkland, S. A. Sweat, F. B. Sirmans, J. T. Dame. This bank solicits the accounts of individuals, merchants, farmers and others, and we will extend every accommodation consistent with good banking. We want your business and will make it to your interest to deal with us.